


Opening Up

by CheshireSmile



Series: What Are You Looking For? [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, i guess??, not really knowledgable in fanfic tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5151680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireSmile/pseuds/CheshireSmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They each have a vague memory of another timeline, a sense they have seen you before.<br/>However, it might be the hardest to deal with when you're someone who knows too much, or someone who has lost too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opening Up

**Author's Note:**

> Is the title a door pun? who knows!!! i just suck at naming!!!  
> bonus at the end

Something about the sunset is soothing.

The sun spread across the sky in soft, cream coloured blurs. Outstretched rays lingered against the background, a comforting goodbye, in a sense. 

Through half-lidded eyes, he watched the descent of the sun. The first farewell of a new found sight. It only felt suitable for this to take place on the same ground where he had welcomed it first. His feet just near the edge of the rocky mountain cliff. Hands tucked snuggly in his jacket, as they always are.

Leaving still filled him with doubt. Throughout the day, in between the rush of the excited chaos, the energetic celebration of freedom, he found himself returning to the back room of his home in Snowdin. His slim fingers would graze over the papers, looking for any more jumps, or resets, or anything. He kept a tally in his head for every difference. Marked off every position on the timeline they had gotten to before jumping back. Hanging onto this information would be the closest anyone would get to remembering, and with his ignorance tainted, he could no longer keep himself from looking over the answers each time. Perhaps it was curiosity that drove him, or it was a dim hope that his life hadn’t skipped, that he hadn’t lost his progress yet.

Fortunately, he disappeared so often that nobody questioned when he was no longer there. The most he got was an irate text message from Papyrus, saying something along the lines of the importance of staying in a group when going out somewhere new. 

Still, he idled around the entrance to the underground, tempted to journey back to Snowdin and stare at the reports that flowed in. His own anxieties dictated that it would be inevitable soon, but for now, he stayed watching the orange creamsicle sky, basking in a long forgotten serenity.

“…There you are, Sans.” 

Toriel’s gentle voice drew his attention, if only a bit. His head slowly turned towards her, a lazy smile plastered on his face, as he drawled out a tired hello in response.

“lookin’ for me? surprised the kid’s not with you.”

“Undyne and Alphys wished to have Frisk show them around. Although, I believe they had a specific place in mind.”

“video store?”, he let out a light chuckle, “hope the one frisk had in mind ain’t _tape_ d off since they’ve been gone.”

Almost on cue with his wink, he saw the subtle changes in her face as it scrunched up, followed by a held-back laugh at his comment. Her paw balled up, holding it against her snout. The corners of his mouth subtly widened, not any more than what most were used to seeing.

There was still something that hovered in the atmosphere that needed to be said, however. He could tell by the way her eyes drifted towards the sky, and the tiny movements she made toward him. Sometimes, his observations about these things allowed him to read people.  
But his doubts would ignore the words.  
At least with Toriel, sincerity graced her presence. 

Once her laughter subsided, their eyes finally caught each other directly.  
“…Sans”, her voice carried her natural sweet tone, but something tense lay beneath it, “Would you mind if I sit with you for a moment?”

“well, not exactly sitting right now, but sure, tori.” He shuffled a bit to the side, giving her space beside him by the cliff. There was a pause between her first steps, an escaped sigh, and the placement of her hands curled up inside each other in front of her chest. A soft wind gently grazed her robes just as she sat down beside her friend, knees pressed to the dirt and legs underneath her. Sans did not sit down, though it was a passing thought.

“The barrier has finally broken,” she practically breathed her words, “I am left wondering, why are you back here, at the start of it all?” 

“i could ask the same thing to you, tori” There was no hostility in his voice, just a gentle prodding to his tone, a teasing grin.

“I suppose you could." Another pause. He had expected a giggle, even a half-hearted one, but there was only a slight smile, and a loving look of sadness. His grin grew lax at the sight, and he turned his head back toward the sky.  
"Beyond the door of the ruins, we talked about many things, did we not? Well, I hope you do not mind too much, if I ask you something that may sound silly.”

“sure, lay it on me.”

“There is a part inside of me that wonders if these things are real.”

It’s darker than it was before. Neither of them noticed the way the sun peaked over the tops of hills and trees, cascading shadows over the sea of plant life. They’re ominous in their appearance- an umbrageous figure stretching its limbs towards them, littered with cracks and creases. They watched the conversation, gently swaying, adding nothing more than a quiet ambiance. There is a moment where an inquiry beckoned to be released from his mouth, but a breeze shushed him, grazing through his hollow skull. The circumstances told him to wait.  
Her body said the same.

Toriel’s paws tightened their grip on one another, a slight squint adorning the creases of her eyes, and a forced chuckle that reverberated against her throat, but felt so shallow when it finally emerged through her lips.  
“There are days when I get an overwhelming sensation of déjà vu.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, but a smile is still clipped to her face. “I feel it sometimes when I look at Frisk. It is as if I’ve already come to know them before, a familiar face, even when I first came upon them near the flowerbed. I wonder, during these times, if I am projecting onto them, visualizing a face I know will never come back instead of their own. Other times… I wonder if I am simply waiting to wake up from a dream. “

“It feels too good to be true. I suppose…”  
Her lip quivered as the end to the thought shriveled up into nothing.  
A delicate mixture of worry and longing peppered her features, almost too subtle to see through the cracks that formed through her crumbling façade of good-natured optimism. Each curve of doubt that formed on her face felt like a knife that cut away at his bones.

“I am scared.” It came out in a breath, a hopeful one; a wish that once it was released, relief would wash over, a weight lifted from her aching shoulders, baggage removed from calloused hands.  
But it didn’t come.  
“Waking up from a wonderful dream… Is it silly to worry about reality in such a way?”

There is a lot to say. A lot to divulge in. A lot to reassure her.  
But adding validation to her fears would just add another layer of doubt.  
Is it more comforting to know that your fears are real and that others have the same lingering sense of a memory, or to just offer a shoulder and say there is nothing wrong with it; something that may leave her relieved but empty?  
Her eyes asked for an answer, even though her head faced towards the oncoming twilight that doused the world above.  
Just one drop from the waterfall of information he held within himself.  
Maybe it would help.

“… i get what you mean, tori.” The pupils that shone through his sockets dim just a bit, a soft shade of white from beyond the abyss in his skull. There was no anger that engulfed them into darkness, only solemnity that hazed his vision ever so slightly. Their eyes don’t meet. Often times when there are pauses, when there is no joke to be said, his back does most of the talking.  
“think you’re just feelin’ overwhelmed. i mean, it’s a lot to take in from being behind that door for so long, y’know? i get the same feeling when somethin’ big happens.”

Heavy with uncertainty, his eyes fell downward in turn with his head; just enough of a tilt to keep the gaze between them broken, just enough to keep a bit of a wall between them.  
Even with the setup, there was a silent acknowledgement between the two of them. He knew she was watching, she knew he was blocking.

“uh, so, since we’re both in the same boat here…”, Sans nudged his head up slightly, the brightness coming back to his sockets in tandem with a smile. “it’s a _boat_ time we work on clearin’ those doubts, hope you don’t mind if we help each other row forward, huh?”  
That smile expanded so quickly, an endearing toothy grin that threatened to break his cheekbones apart. He coupled it with a wink while one of his hands slid out of his pockets- palm held flat against the side of his head.

Not even the wind managed to breathe through them before Toriel guffawed at his joke. A light shade of pink brushed over her cheeks, accented by the pure white fur that covered them and the small tears that dripped down her face. She pushed herself forward and entangled herself around him, a tight but gentle embrace that pulled him in closer. Both hands slipped out of his jacket, extended out while he balanced himself, an attempt to regain both posture and composure before she noticed just how off guard she caught him. 

Luckily, she would never notice. Not as she nuzzled herself into his shoulder, small bursts of giggles sputtering out into the quiet air. Between her gasps for breaths, a struggle to retain the lost air from her laughs and her sadness, she conjured up just enough to whisper something.  
“Thank you.”

He stood a bit straighter, as much as he could with Toriel clung onto his shoulders. His line of sight was shortened, forced only to stare straight ahead of him. There was no view of her face, her posture, only the subtle changes he could feel as her heart pounded against him, and the changes of her tone.

The door again, but warmer.  
Sweeter.

Sans froze again as he picked up the gentle sound of a stunted breath. It’s as if he could taste the flavor of the words before they were spoken. Her embrace was warm, her heart was beaming, and her grip remained gentle.  
“Thank you”, the words are repeated again. A flow of thankfulness streamed over him. The barrage of them all left little to no opening to respond. It insisted on being lone, on being the center of attention, to exaggerate its own graciousness.  


“woah, tori, didn’t know it was already thanksgiving.”, the sentence came out covered by a chuckle, a dash of awkwardness and uncertainty rather than the confidence that usually sprinkled his laughs.

“You have done so much for me, Sans: my promise, their safety, your compassion… and my loneliness. I did not get the chance to thank you for all of this. I have to make up for that, do I not?”

Something about the words she uttered burned inside. A fire so tame that it merely flashed against the body in bursts of heat, like palpitations of the heart.  
If that’s what a heart beat even felt like.  
The feeling found its strength most in his cheeks, turning into a bumbling mess of confusion and flattery that managed to rise above the bones and paint them a shy blue.

“Knock, knock.”  
The ringing of a melodious voice, trimmed with a quiet happiness, dragged the focus off from the kindling warmth buried deep within the confinements of marrow. Immersed so deeply in the sensation of that exhilarating, burning feeling, he almost didn’t catch what she said.  
“…who’s there?”  
“Adore.”  
“adore who?”  
“I am very glad adore is not separating us anymore.”

Wow.

It started off with a pause, one that piled onto the next until it was so dense, so thick, it pressed him tighter than the hug she captured him in. That force of silence, propelled by a suppressed laugh, overthrew everything he had built between. A rushing sense of pure mirth ran through his arms, causing them to raise up so they could wrap themselves around her. The strength of his laughter only rose as Toriel joined his howling outburst. She always laughed harder when he was laughing, and because of that, their times were filled with a harmonious chorus of two loving voices sharing a passion.  
A passion that just happened to be awful, awful jokes.

Toriel pushed herself off of the ground, lifting Sans with her as well. They spun, still tied up snuggly in the other’s grasp. They kept spinning further away from the edge, aware enough of the danger, but too deeply thrust into their own enjoyment to stop; foreheads pressed against one another as they continued to laugh. Mourning dissipated, Snowdin disappeared; both a vague memory for just a moment, one that was cast out by their own intoxication when faced with the prospect of togetherness. By the idea of a faraway happiness.

The sun just barely peeked over the horizon, hurried in its descent, as it envied the warmth that radiated from two mending souls.

**Author's Note:**

> A pudgy, yellow hand covers a gasping mouth, one that is spilling sounds of adoration. Frisk notes the twinkle in her eyes, reflected in her glasses, as Alphys watches her surveillance recordings.  
> "Oh my god?? Frisk?" her chair spins dramatically, hands bunched up together underneath her chin, almost to emphasize the goofy smile on her face.  
> "First you don't tell me how cute the queen is... now you're keeping me out of the love loop? W-wait... I have an idea! Get me my notebook please, they totally need a ship name!"  
> "W-what's with that look?! I'm not going to write about them, I promise! I just... I just... I have a hole in my asgoriel heart."
> 
> She pouts. Frisk decides to leave as she calls out after them.


End file.
